Houston b-girls Ericka Martinez and Lucia Rodriguez break...

1of11Erika Martinez, left, and Lucia Rodriguez, who are competitive B-Girl break dancers, are a part of the collective BGirl City here in Houston to promote and empower female break dancers. They are also involved in putting on the Cyber Punk City event.Photo: Brett Coomer, Houston Chronicle / Staff photographer

2of11Erika Martinez, who is a competitive B-Girl, a breakdancer who started the collective BGirl City here in Houston to promote and empower female break dancers. She's involved in putting on the Cyber Punk City event.Photo: Brett Coomer, Houston Chronicle / Staff photographer

3of11Erika Martinez, who is a competitive B-Girl, a breakdancer who started the collective BGirl City here in Houston to promote and empower female break dancers. She's involved in putting on the Cyber Punk City event.Photo: Brett Coomer, Houston Chronicle / Staff photographer

5of11Erika Martinez, who is a competitive B-Girl, a breakdancer who started the collective BGirl City here in Houston to promote and empower female break dancers. She's involved in putting on the Cyber Punk City event.Photo: Brett Coomer, Houston Chronicle / Staff photographer

6of11Erika Martinez, who is a competitive B-Girl, a breakdancer who started the collective BGirl City here in Houston to promote and empower female break dancers. She's involved in putting on the Cyber Punk City event.Photo: Brett Coomer, Houston Chronicle / Staff photographer

7of11Erika Martinez, who is a competitive B-Girl, a breakdancer who started the collective BGirl City here in Houston to promote and empower female break dancers. She's involved in putting on the Cyber Punk City event.Photo: Brett Coomer, Houston Chronicle / Staff photographer

8of11Erika Martinez, who is a competitive B-Girl, a breakdancer who started the collective BGirl City here in Houston to promote and empower female break dancers. She's involved in putting on the Cyber Punk City event.Photo: Brett Coomer, Houston Chronicle / Staff photographer

9of11Erika Martinez, who is a competitive B-Girl, a breakdancer who started the collective BGirl City here in Houston to promote and empower female break dancers. She's involved in putting on the Cyber Punk City event.Photo: Brett Coomer, Houston Chronicle / Staff photographer

10of11Erika Martinez, who is a competitive B-Girl, a breakdancer who started the collective BGirl City here in Houston to promote and empower female break dancers. She's involved in putting on the Cyber Punk City event.Photo: Brett Coomer, Houston Chronicle / Staff photographer

11of11Erika Martinez, who is a competitive B-Girl, a breakdancer who started the collective BGirl City here in Houston to promote and empower female break dancers. She's involved in putting on the Cyber Punk City event.Photo: Brett Coomer, Houston Chronicle / Staff photographer

Inside the warehouse space that doubles as a local graffiti mecca known as the Harrisburg Arts Museum, Ericka Martinez, in her Kangol cap, oversized glasses and Adidas track suit, looks like she could be an extra in a hip-hop music video.

But this is her look. She’s a b-girl, a name given to women who know the difference between a windmill and a headspin and have dedicated part of their lives to perfecting their own style of break dancing.

She’ll be showing off some of those moves at Friday’s Houstonary 2019: Cyber Punk City, an art-film-music-fashion festival being held at the Harrisburg Arts Museum.

Of course, it shouldn’t come as a shock that Houston has long made a name for itself in a hip-hop element created in New York City in the 1970s. Martinez, 40, however is notable for taking this art form to the next level and inspiring women to partake in the male-dominated dance art.

Houstonary 2019: Cyber Punk City

When: 7-11 p.m. Friday

Where: Harrisburg Arts Museum, 4200 Harrisburg

Details: $50-$245; eventbrite.com; the next Hip Hop Vintage Flea Market takes place at noon on March 3 at the ReMax Building Lot, 2011 Leeland

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She not only moves the culture on the break-dancing floor, recently she’s become known for curating one of the most intriguing vintage clothing markets in the city with her monthly Hip Hop Vinatge Flea Market, which happens the first Sunday of every month.

Many will argue about the proper elements of hip-hop culture, which includes break dancing, DJing, MCing and graffiti. Fashion is another element, from the style of footwear to the choices in athletic jerseys or the proper way to let a pair of jeans hang just a notch below the waist.

Break dancing on the glass ceiling

Lucia Rodriguez, 33, is another Houston break dancer who is the co-founder of the popular flea market. She also helps Martinez run her nonprofit organization, B-Girl City.

A 10-year career at The Gap store in The Woodlands helped make her an expert in retail, which eventually led to her creating her own vintage clothing shop, Resale Folds, along with her husband, Jesse. He is known as Cheezebox of the local break-dancing outfit Havikoro Crew, which is celebrating its 20th anniversary with a series of shows at the Raven Tower on March 2.

“To me, they’re my hometown heroes because they made it out and made noise for Houston, Texas,” says Martinez, who is best known in breakin’ circles as “B-Girl Babygirl.”

While that crew was made up of male breakers, Martinez always knew she wanted to highlight women’s contributions to hip-hop culture, which is why she started her own nonprofit organization.

Hip-hop is about unity and love, she says. She wanted to give girls something to build on their own and a space they could look forward to competing in. B-Girl City puts on a yearly female break-dance battle event and other gatherings that support local youth culture. Two years ago, she quit a good-paying job as a nurse for an OBGYN clinic to go all in with her nonprofit.

Raised on ‘Beat Street’

The flea market is an outgrowth of those efforts, featuring break dancing and rapping while people hunt for vintage gear. “I think the misconception is that we’re a hip-hop vintage flea market, you have to be hip-hop affiliated, and that’s not really what it is, we’re just trying to show you the culture, we’re trying to show you why we love it,” says Rodriguez, 33.

Martinez doesn’t look like your typical 40-year-old. She grew up in Houston watching her brothers break dance when she was 8 years old. By the time she reached middle school, she was trying to perfect her uprock and footwork, trading VHS tapes with other b-boys and b-girls on the scene to learn new moves. She was one of only a handful or young girls competing and showcasing their dance in the 1990s at spots such as Red Square downtown and Club A.M.

Like a lot of hip-hop heads her age, she was introduced to break dancing through films like “Beat Street,” “I visualized that with what my brother and his friends were doing outside. It’s funny because you see these hardcore guys doing the craziest things in the street, to seeing them dance with smiles on their faces.”

She said break dancing kept her away from street life, since she was being exposed to gangs, and says she was known as a troublemaker in school. The “hood raised me,” she says. But hip-hop culture kept her moving in a positive direction.

“We’re the poor kids from the barrios, this is part of our roots, where we found the love of the culture of hip-hop and breaking,” Martinez notes.

But while the aesthetic is specific to a culture raised on rhymes and breakbeats, it’s not just for hip-hop fans.

Says Rodriguez, “I’ve seen all families from all different walks of life, everybody gets a taste of it. We want to bring real hip-hop and genuine hip-hop back to you, not what you see on TV.”